


Shifting Gears

by SerotoninShift



Category: Motorcity
Genre: Chuck's a little more self-confident when he doesn't think he's about to die, M/M, bisexual!Chuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 14:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10439496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerotoninShift/pseuds/SerotoninShift
Summary: “Bro, We Are Teens . Its Ok To Cry Around Me . Im Ur Best Friend . I Love You . ... Bro, We Are Kiss ing Now . . No Dont Stop Bro .. Bro …”~@babysnames





	

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the entirety of Motorcity and then my hand slipped. This takes place right after “Mayhem Night.”

“Uuuuuugh, I can’t believe this! She actually kissed me, and it was for the worst possible reason!” Chuck is slumped over, face on the kitchen table, despondent. Mike gives Julie a look that means _What do I even say here?_ and Julie scowls, which means, _How should I know._ Texas frowns at Chuck, confused.

“Skinny, you got some tongue-wrestling action, I don’t know what you’re complaining about!”

“Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

“So wait a minute.” Texas furrows his brow and Mike can practically smell the burning metal as gears turn in his head. “She kissed you and then she didn’t have the willies anymore, right?” The light dawns. Great. “HAW! I get it! That means kissing you was her worst fear! Whoa, you should NOT ask HER out. I wouldn’t go after someone who thought I was the worst. That would mean they were stupid, because Texas is obviously the BEST. Don’t let it get you down, though, little buddy, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. Plenty of cars on the road, am I right or am I right?” He slaps Chuck on the shoulder. “Listen to Texas on this one, I have lots of insights on dating.”

Chuck gently bangs his head on the table a few times.

“Hey Texas!” Dutch says loudly, standing up, “I have an idea for a new painting, you want to help me figure out where to put it in the garage?”

“Does it have lasers?”

“Yeah, sure, totally.”

“Then HECK YES Texas will help! Texas is the best at helping.” Texas slings an arm familiarly across Dutch’s back and the two of them head off to the depths of the garage, Texas saying something about dragons as they go.

Julie, Mike, and Chuck sit in silence for a minute. Mike fiddles with his glass. 

“Sorry, Chuck,” Julie says apologetically, and Chuck shrinks into himself even further, if possible. Mike’s heart contracts into a fist. “Hey, buddy,” he says, reaching across the table, trying to provide some comfort, and sort of pats Chuck on the side of the head.

Chuck shrugs him off and gets up abruptly. He stands there for a second, eyes hidden behind his bangs, frowning. “I’m gonna… go work on some… algorithms,” he finally says, and shuffles away.

Julie sighs deeply. “Well, this is awkward,” she says. Mike groans and covers his face with his hands. 

“I’ll go talk to him,” he says.

***

He finds Chuck in the corner of the garage he’s turned into a workspace, where he keeps a table full of spare computer parts. He’s soldering things together dolefully.

“Hey, bro…”

“Mike, just don’t, okay?” Chuck says without turning around.

“Listen, it can’t be _that_ bad, you always freak out about this stuff and…”

“Mikey!” Chuck puts down the soldering iron and turns to face him, pushing his safety googles up. It keeps the hair out of his eyes, and they look distraught and very blue. “It totally is THAT BAD. I’m her worst nightmare. Her WORST NIGHTMARE, dude. It would be bad enough if I was just, I dunno, in her top ten? But I’m the headliner, I’m her number one worst-case scenario.”

Mike doesn’t know what to say to that, but he tries anyway. “Think about it though, she lives in Deluxe, it not like she has a lot of bad stuff happening to her. Her worst nightmare can’t be _that_ bad.”

Chuck gives him an aggrieved look. “You’re not helping, man. URRRGH!” He slumps over. “Just admit it, I’m a loser. Kissing me is probably EVERYONE’S worst nightmare.”

Well, that’s just taking it too far. “It wouldn’t be _my_ worst nightmare,” Mike says indignantly. 

Then he realizes what he just said. “Buddy,” he tacks on. Chuck gives him a weird look. Mike swallows, suddenly wishing the Kane-bot alarm would go off.

“Great,” Chuck says finally, scowling. “Kissing me is not the worst nightmare of a guy who stares DEATH in the face every day. Very reassuring! I bet it’s on your list of things to NEVER, EVER do, though! Probably close to the top, because who wants to kiss the dumb nerd who’s scared of everything?” 

This isn’t going well. 

“That’s totally not true, dude, I haven’t, like, ranked it. If I was going to rank it, it would be, um… I haven’t even thought about it!”

He thinks about it. 

Then he thinks about it some more. 

When he snaps out of it, Chuck is giving him a different kind of weird look. He realizes he’s been standing there stupidly for a good minute, and his cheeks are burning with creeping heat.

“Uh,” he says. _Pull yourself together, Chilton!_ snaps a voice in the back of his head, but cadet training failed to prepare him for this situation.

Chuck sighs, waving a hand, looking even more despondent. “Never mind, man. You don’t have to rank it, that’s weird. I think I know where it would be anyway. I get it.” 

“That’s not… um.” No matter what he says right now, there might be bad consequences.

“Just DROP it, Mike, geez. I’m… I just want to be alone for a little while, alright?”

“O… okay.” Mike can’t think of a time he’s ever screwed up this badly, and that includes the kitten incident. “I’ll just… go. Sorry.” And he backs out of the workspace and flees, cursing himself silently.

***

Safely back in his room, Mike throws himself on the bed and looks up at the ceiling. What is going on in his brain? Once thought, it cannot be unthunk; kissing Chuck would probably be really awesome. He’s ruffled Chuck’s hair enough times to know its texture, and he can imagine running his fingers though it, pulling Chuck down a little (he’s so unfairly tall), and pressing their mouths together, just taking things for a nice easy test drive. Stuff like that wasn’t encouraged in the cadets, so Mike’s never tried it, but he’s up for a new adventure one hundred percent. 

There’s a problem though. Chuck is his main dude, his best pal, his number one hombre. The way he feels about the guy, kissing him doesn’t seem like _that_ much of a leap. But what if Chuck doesn’t feel the same way? He probably doesn’t have any interest in best friend smooches. What then? 

Best to let sleeping cyberhounds lie, right? 

***

But Chuck _mopes_. It’s unbearable. He can barely even look at Mike as he hauls himself mournfully around the garage. It does things to Mike’s chest that are really uncomfortable and squeezy. It lasts for a full 24 hours before Mike decides he has to do something about it.

There’s only two options here, after all. Option one: tell Chuck he would really be into the kissing thing. This, unfortunately, opens up the possibility that Chuck will think Mike is a creep, which would be upsetting. Option two: be a complete coward and let Chuck think he is unkissable forever. So it’s an easy call, in the end; Mike’s no coward, and always tries to put the welfare of his team over personal safety or comfort.

When he goes to visit Chuck at his workstation, he tries not to beat around the bush.

“I gotta tell you something.”

“What?” Chuck looks up at him through his mop of hair, and just like that Mike starts _thinking_ about it again, about how Chuck might make one of his cute surprised noises if he got kissed (not one of the bad noises like he thinks they’re about to die, but one of the good noises like when he comes up with a solution to a computer problem), and how his lips look really soft, and are kind of amazing, and… 

“Dude, what? You’re being weird,” Chuck says.

“Top five,” Mike blurts out.

“What?” says Chuck.

Mike takes a deep breath. He can do this, he’s Mike freakin’ _Chilton._ “Kissing you. I’d rank it in the top five. Of things I’d like to do.”

Chuck pushes aside his bangs and fixes Mike with a shocked look. “I thought about it,” Mike says helplessly, “And it’s hard to rank because I have to put defeating Kane as number one, and then there’s protecting Motorcity until we defeat Kane, and there’s a modification I’ve been wanting to make to Mutt that would give her turboboost a double-boost option, but that would go _after_ kissing you, so yeah, definitely top five. Top three, actually. So.” 

Chuck looks around as if someone might be filming them secretly. “Are you messing with me?”

“ _Ugh,_ no dude, I’m not messing with you! It’s fine, you don’t have to want to kiss me back, but I know you’re really upset about Claire so I just wanted you to know there’s somebody who thinks kissing you would be awesome.”

Chuck is slowly turning the color of Jacob’s beet casserole. “You, but, I don’t,” he says. That seems to be the end of the sentence, such as it is. Okay, mission accomplished! “That’s it,” Mike says, mortified. “I just wanted you to know. I’ll get going, I gotta wash Mutt.” He turns to leave, face aflame. 

“WHOA WHOA WHOA!” Chuck yells. Mike stops. “Mikey. You can’t just walk away after you say something like that!” Dang! That had totally been the whole plan. “I mean, what if I, uh.”

Mike turns around. Chuck has tucked his bangs behind his ears, and man, his eyes are are really, really blue. 

“I mean. What if I.” Chuck stops. He looks uncomfortable. “Wait. Are you just trying to make me feel better? I don’t get it. You do like a million push-ups every morning and you are absolutely the best at everything, and you want to kiss ME?”

He sounds disbelieving. Mike is offended by this on Chuck’s behalf. “I’m not the best at programming! That’s you, you’re a genius at it. And you’re funny and smart, and you always ride with me even though I drive too fast, and you’re brave even though you don’t think you are, and you saved my life, you saved our butts a _bunch_ of times, and you always have my back. Why wouldn’t I want to kiss you?”

“Claire didn’t.”

“Claire’s a snob,” Mike says with heat. “She doesn’t get you. She barely even knows you. I _know_ you, so it counts more, right? Forget Claire.” 

Chuck is staring at him intently. “You’re really serious. You would kiss me. Like, right now?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, man!”

“Then…” Chuck pauses, takes a deep breath, gets that look like he’s bracing himself when Mike is about to take them over a big jump, and says,”Then why aren’t you doing it?”

Oh.

 _Oh._ This is a good outcome. This is the best-case scenario. Mike has to stop himself from doing a fist pump. Instead he grins at Chuck wolfishly. “You want me to?”

Chuck’s whole face is bright red. It’s adorable. “I… yes?” he says. “I just never thought you’d… I didn’t want to mess things up. I… I always like people who are out of my league, and mess it up. I didn’t want that to happen with you, so I tried not to think about it.”

This is great. This is so great. Mike can’t suppress his ear-to-ear grin. “You thought about it?”

“You dumbass! I tried NOT to!” Chuck sputters, and Mike can’t help it, he laughs delightedly. “Excellent! Get ready, Chuckles,” he says, and cracks his neck. “I’m about to make your dreams come true.”

“Are you for real, you mmmpphhh.” Mike doesn’t let Chuck finish the sentence. He plants one on him, and it’s rough and messy and their teeth click together and Mike is grabbing Chuck’s hair and Chuck is making a small strangled noise and it’s actually even more awesome than he thought it would be.

When they pull apart a little, Mike’s heart is racing. Chuck’s pupils are huge and he looks even more tousled than usual, and it’s a really good look. “Man,” Mike says, “Why didn’t I think of this sooner?”

“You total dumbass,” Chuck says, a little breathless.

“Language, Chuckles,” Mike admonishes.

“Can you please not call me Chuckles if we’re kissing, it’s not hhmmph.” Mike kisses him again, more gently this time, and with a little tongue. Chuck makes a noise, and it’s definitely one of the good ones. Then he puts a hand up Mike’s shirt.

Chuck really is a genius. Mike hadn’t expected they’d even get to the kissing part, so he hadn’t thought much past that. But with Chuck’s hand warm on his stomach, a whole vista of possibilities is opening up before him. He runs his hands up Chuck’s arms and grips his shoulders, feels him shiver a little before letting their mouths pull apart.

“Chuck…” he has to stop and clear his throat, because his voice is strangely hoarse. “Buddy, this is all pretty new to me, but now that we’re on the same page here I’d really like to go to my room and take some ideas out for a spin. I’ll even,” he waggles his eyebrows suggestively, “let you drive.” Chuck makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a groan and bonks his head into Mike’s shoulder. He rests it there for long enough that Mike starts to get a little worried. But then he pulls back to stare searchingly at Mike and his expression is bemused but happy, and something else, too, something fierce and wanting, and Mike feels his heart do a little hiccup.

“Yeah,” Chuck says, “I’d like that,” and his voice is steady and sure, and he leans forward, and keeps leaning, and bites Mike’s earlobe. 

When the white lights have cleared out of Mike’s vision, Chuck is staring at him again with that fierce look. Mike has the same feeling in his gut he gets going three hundred down an unknown stretch of highway; the feeling that he’s careening heedlessly into the future, barely in control. It’s one of his favorite feelings. Chuck cups Mike’s jaw with his free hand and then _Chuck_ is kissing _him_ and it’s a totally different experience; he feels like he’s melting and his knees get a little weak. Chuck’s tongue pushes against his lips and Mike opens his mouth to let him explore, and when Chuck licks the roof of his mouth he involuntarily makes a very undignified noise.

When Chuck pulls back to look at him again, he flushes; he must be a total mess. But Chuck seems to like what he sees. He grins, one of the rare, uninhibited, fearless ones, pushes Mike back gently, and puts out a hand.

“C’mon then,” he says, and Mike takes his hand and follows him, and it’s easy, just like shifting gears.


End file.
